When I was 4

I went out for ‘The Goal Mile’ this morning as the winter swim was not really a runner with the condition of the country roads. The Goal Mile wasn’t really a runner either as the CIT running track was completely snowed in and frozen over.

I instead went out to the ‘Farm’ – a set of football and rugby fields owned by the University with a 2 mile perimeter. I decided to just run one loop as it would be a bit greedy to on Christmas morning to go for 2 or 3 loops (something many of the older runners were doing).

Anyway that was the running.

Back to 1974 and my 4th year.

Around now I have definite memories of my life. One of the most existential memories I have was of standing in the hall asking my mother how come I was born my age (3) and how come she was born her age (basically grown-up). I didn’t have any understanding of the past or the future. I suppose all kids have these memories.

The problem with these early years is you don’t have any definitive moments that you can hang memories on. Next year (1975) I have much more vivid memories – mainly because I had started school and now had a structure where I could remember holidays, school teachers and friends and events.

Looking back on this year I do remember (all of this is from the perspective of today and not a memory from then) that we were all part of what we would call the ‘poor middle classes’ today. Basically birthdays and Christmas were major events because you weren’t likely to get a sniff off of a toy any other time. There were no such thing as branded runners or labelled jeans (i.e. you never got a pair of ROMS) . This didn’t worry you until you were in school and could see the difference. This didn’t make much of a difference to you as you were among your peers. Again, from the perspective of today, this huge population of poor middle classes was the most likely driver of the consumer boom of the last 10 years.

Anyway, starting from tomorrow the posts should have more structure – what we did in school and all that jazz.
Oh, yea,

one last thing –

what I got for Christmas –

In terms of presents (I obviously got the love of my family).

I got a nice table lamp

Some running socks

A nice shirt

A nice calendar

A pair of these:

Yoko Ono is missing her shoes

I’d never buy them myself but having worn them for the past day in -3C I can promise you that they are excellent.

I got a good book

I got the new Take That CD (a major departure for me as I’m more of a Tom Waits man myself). – Give it a whirl. Not bad.

I got a long sleeve HH running top and a Mizuno running vest

And, the thing I really wanted (and got) was an Airfix model of an F/A18 Hornet. I really want it because, as a busy dad of 3 small kids it is the promise of free time and a return to my youth.

IF you don’t know what an F/A18 Hornet is then this video should help jog your memory:

Related

2 responses to “When I was 4”

Was reading your blog and had a ‘homer moment’,
i kept seeing white spots infront of my eyes and I thought gees something wrong with the old eyesight!
Took me a couple of moment to work out it was virtual snow!!!
HaHa :]